Hail and Farewell, Ctd.

As you can plainly see, we rendezvoused with Dan, who was a delightful fellow, especially given the way his Friday afternoon was unfolding, and we took delivery of the replacement 2015 Yukon XL. Yes, the Yukon does blow cool air across the buttocks of its passengers — but only in the front seats. The Caddy did so in the second row, too. Just one of the many differences between the two vehicles. The Yukon is a fine car. Don’t get me wrong. But it’s no Caddy. We all feel a bit like Dad used to make more money, but then some investments went south, and we had to tighten our belts, eat more dinners at home, skip that family vacation to Martha’s Vineyard. Oh, don’t worry about us. We’re doing just fine. I mean, we’re still rolling in a car that’s so big we can play tag in it. But no air-conditioned seats in the second row. It took Bradford awhile to realize this. He hit what he thought was the AC button for his seat. It turned out to be the heat button. “Wait, this seat is hot,” he said. “Oh, man, I feel like I peed my pants.” Hash tag: first-world pains!

Anyway, we just left Benton, Arkansas, where we stopped for provisions and so that Zac could smoke. If you think the track suits turned some heads at the Superstop, you are right. They did turn heads. The cashier held his curiosity in check as long as he could and then finally asked, “What do y’all do?” Mike answered, “It’s complicated, and I’m not sure I’m allowed to discuss it.”

As I type these words, we are crawling along at about 3 mph, merging into some serious traffic on I-40. And Peter has found that the third row is not to his liking. Not only no cooled seats, but Lavin rules that zone. It is chaos.